


On Ice

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Bones
Genre: Gen, Ice Skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"Bones, you grew up in Chicago. How could you never go ice skating?" </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	On Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to Iulia!
> 
> This story was first posted January 15, 2007.

Booth reappeared an hour after he'd insisted on leaving, swiping himself into the lab with a distinctly unenthusiastic motion of his hand. Brennan frowned, setting down the probe she'd been using to swab out bullet holes. "Booth? I thought you had somewhere to be. You were excited about it."

"I remember," Booth said, coming over to the table. He started to put his hands on the edge, then yanked them back before she could tell him not to. "Something came up."

Brennan looked around the quiet lab. The others had all left shortly after Booth had; they couldn't do much until morning, when the DNA results on their victim would be in, and Cam had insisted on everyone leaving the lab for the night. Only Brennan had stayed behind; Cam had given in with no more than an eyeroll, letting her hang around and work on the skull a while longer after extracting a promise from Brennan that she'd leave in an hour. Brennan wasn't sure what time that had been. "Something came up with the case? Did you call Cam back in?"

But Booth was shaking his head, looking disappointed. "We're still deadlocked. Something came up with where I was supposed to be. With Parker."

Brennan opened her mouth to ask how busy a five-year-old could be on a weeknight, but Booth spoke before she could.

"Rebecca's parents are in town, they're--I was going to surprise him, I didn't check with her beforehand, so." He made a little whistling sound and a short hand gesture, perfectly evocative of a missed chance.

"What was the surprise?"

Booth looked up sharply, seeming startled by the question, though it was a perfectly obvious one. Then he looked down again, his shoulders bending and the words coming out low. "I was going to take him ice skating. He's never been, and the new rink in Ballston just opened, and--I don't know, it's winter, he's hardly ever seen snow, but a kid oughta go ice skating in the winter, at least once."

Brennan frowned, trying to work out the logic of that. She'd seen plenty of snow as a child, but she didn't think there had been any particular significance to winter except trying not to freeze to death on the playground during recess. She'd never felt particularly deprived by a lack of ice skating. "_I've_ never been ice skating."

Booth met her eyes again. "You've never been ice skating? Bones, you grew up in Chicago. How could you never go ice skating?"

"I just _didn't_. It's not like someone straps you into skates at the city limits." She remembered Russ going, though, even watching Russ sometimes--she'd just never done it herself. She'd always been awkward and never wanted to try in front of so many strangers when she was sure to fall and embarrass herself. "It's not like there's any point to knowing how. As a mode of transportation, it's--"

"A mode of _transportation_?" There was a hint of laughter in Booth's voice, light coming back into his eyes like there had been before he left. "It's not about _going_ anywhere, it's just about--you know--" He waved his hand, seeming to expect her to draw his meaning out of thin air.

Brennan shook her head.

"That's it," Booth said, suddenly decisive. "Come on, _you're_ going ice skating."

"What? No, I've got to--"

"You've got to leave inside the next twenty minutes or security is going to throw you out. Cam's orders. They told me when I came in."

Brennan looked from the bright smile on Booth's face--the defeat of two minutes ago vanished like it had never existed--to the security guard standing near the entrance, watching them with a dubious expression. "You're making that up."

Booth shrugged. "You can stay here and find out," he said. "Or you can come down to the rink with me and find out what's so great about ice skating. Up to you, Bones."

She looked past him again; the security guard was checking his watch and looking unhappy.

 

* * *

The skates were heavy and stiff, and Booth had insisted on lacing them up much too tightly; she could barely feel her feet. She followed him awkwardly across the rubber mats covering the floor to the door leading onto the ice, where he hesitated, looking out at all the people circling the rink. For the first time it occurred to her to ask the obvious question. "Have _you_ ever been ice skating before?"

He turned to look at her with an expression of wounded dignity. "What? Of course I have. It's just... been a while."

Booth stepped gingerly out onto the ice, his usual grace in motion all gone on skates. He looked awkward and stiff, almost lumbering. "Come on, Bones," he said, holding his hands out cautiously to either side. "Easy as pie."

He took an awkward step away to make room for her to come onto the ice, and she scowled at him. "Making pie isn't easy at all," she informed him, keeping one hand to the wall as she set one skate carefully on the ice surface. "Saying that it is is a typically masculine denigration of the traditionally female contributions--"

She had both skates on the ice now, and paused in speaking to concentrate on keeping her feet steady. The variety of injuries possible from falls on ice was really quite appalling; she had no idea why Booth would have thought it was a good idea to bring his son out to do this. Beside her, Booth scooted cautiously along the ice.

"It's easy, you can do it," he repeated. "Just keep your feet down and push. Unlock your knees."

"You're not unlocking _your_ knees," she pointed out. He wasn't; his legs were perfectly straight, parallel to hers. People were gliding past them while they inched along the wall; the youngest ones seemed to be going the fastest, a typical example of the pre-adolescent failure to grasp cause and effect.

"When you say it's been _a while_," she added suspiciously, beginning to get the idea and some momentum, pushing off with one foot and sliding forward a few feet on the other,"how long do you mean?"

"Oh," Booth said, and suddenly he wasn't just bending his knees, he was twisting his whole body, pushing off hard with one foot and coming around to face her, suddenly skating backward as she continued to slide forward. "About fifteen years. Hockey East championship game."

Brennan stared at his feet and then her own, pushing off after him; he skated deftly backward, maintaining the distance between them. "You know how to skate."

"I know how to skate," he agreed, putting his hands behind his back as he said it, while she still had her own arms extended for balance. Showing off.

"You're a--you're a _ringer_," Brennan said, pushing off harder, trying to catch him.

Booth grinned, weaving out of reach. "I never said I--"

Brennan tried to take a lateral stride to follow him away from the wall and everything was suddenly _tipping_ as her balance deserted her--but just like that there was a hand catching her under the arm and Booth's thigh pressed against hers, taking her weight.

"Easy, Bones," he said, still smiling. "Both skates on the ice. You just push and slide, you don't run."

Brennan blinked, still startled by the aborted fall. "Right." Booth wasn't moving at all, just holding her there off-balance. "Um, right. Both skates," she said, looking down at her feet and trying to sort them out. Booth straightened her up and stepped back, but he caught her hand when she would have put her hands out to her sides again.

"Come on," he said, "let me show you. Bend your knees and concentrate on keeping your skates parallel, okay?"

She was still looking at her feet. They were parallel. "Okay, but--"

There was a soft metal-on-ice sound as Booth pushed off, and he was skating backward again, pulling her along at a steady walking pace, faster than she'd been moving herself. Her skates wanted to move apart or together, no doubt following minute irregularities in the ice surface, and she realized what he'd meant about keeping them parallel.

"And your knees bent," he said, squeezing her hand. "Good, you're doing good."

"Well," she corrected. "And I'm not doing anything." She looked up at him to see if he was laughing at her--but he was looking over his shoulder, navigating them through traffic and around a corner. She could see the edge of his smile, but that was all. He looked back as they came around to the long edge of the rink.

"Ready to open it up?" Booth asked, but his feet were already moving faster.

"Open what--" was all she managed, and then they were _flying_ down the ice, Booth's free arm pumping at his side; she clamped her other hand on his wrist and held on, and his hand was tight on hers, tendons standing out in his wrist as he pulled her down the ice. They were passing people--they were passing the reckless _children_\--and Booth was laughing like a lunatic, pulling her in closer to combat her angular momentum as he swung her around the curve at speed.

"Booth!" she yelled, the cold air whipping by her face, holding her feet steady by main force, her hand going as senseless as her feet from Booth's grip. "Booth, how do we _stop_?"

"You wanna _stop_?" he yelled back, and they were already coming up to the edge of the rink, but he wasn't making the turn, they were going to crash into the wall--

Booth's body twisted sideways and his feet did something she couldn't see, sending up a plume of shaved ice in front of them; she crashed bodily into him as he came to a stop just short of the wall, and had to throw her arms around his chest to keep from falling down. Booth's arm went around her waist, steadying her, and Booth was panting through his smile as he said, "Like that, Bones. That's how we stop."

She inched backward, away from the warmth and steadiness of Booth's side, steadying herself on her own skates again. He'd wanted to be here with Parker, but he was demonstrating his expertise to her, instead. One person who'd never skated was much like another, maybe; Booth had needed some non-expert to bring along when he ventured out onto the ice again after fifteen years. "Did you bring me here just so you could show off?"

Booth grinned and shrugged, as though he didn't care about being here. It had been fifteen years, and the last game he'd played in had been a championship, and even she could see he was good, even now. "You were about to get evicted anyway. Come on, Bones, isn't it _fun_?"

Brennan looked down at her feet and cautiously turned herself to face around the corner, watching the easy movements of Booth's skates in contrast to her own. "It's not that bad."

"Uh-huh," Booth said, staying at her side this time, not heading out in front of her to show off again now that she'd called him on it. "It's fun."

Her heart rate was elevated, and she felt slightly giddy: mild hypoxia. She'd barely breathed while Booth was dragging her around the ice. "It's obviously stimulating. Intense physical activity in a low-tempurature environment--"

Booth was skating slowly beside her, silently demonstrating how to push off, and she mimicked his movements, the bend of knee and hip, the slight turn of each foot. "It's _fun_, Bones."

She stared down at her feet and didn't try too hard to hide a smile. Booth's enthusiasm was contagious, and now that she had some reason to believe they might escape skating that fast without radial fractures, it might be good to try again. "Neither of us has broken a bone yet, at least."

"Ha!" Booth said triumphantly, more to the smile than the admission, she thought. "I knew you'd like it. I'm never wrong. Come on, get your shoulders into it, lean down a little. Lower your center of gravity."

"_Oh_," she muttered, settling herself lower over the ice, and now the motion made more sense, the push and glide and shift of weight. "Why didn't you _say_ that?"

"I just did," he replied blithely. "Come on."

He sped up slightly, and Brennan's hands waved at her sides as she tried to follow, her fingers brushing his until he caught her hand again. "There you go," he said, leading her along at a steady pace. She held on tightly to Booth's hand, even as it occurred to her that she and Booth were in fact _holding hands_\--though it was of course a strictly utilitarian grip.

She glanced over at Booth, but he was watching her feet, still smiling slightly. "Good," he muttered, and glanced up and met her eyes. "Good."

"Good," she repeated randomly, but it did feel good, gliding along the ice like this, feet sliding almost without friction. The situation was unstable, but balanced by their momentum--and by Booth's hand holding hers. She knew Booth wouldn't let her fall.

She looked away suddenly, back to her feet, her face heating as Booth's hand tightened on hers. She'd been staring, and Booth had been staring, and she was suddenly conscious of how they must look to everyone else on the ice. Booth cleared his throat beside her but didn't loosen his grip on her hand, and she thought he must have realized the same thing, and then from much too close behind her came the sound of a child saying, "Oops! Sorry--"

She barely felt the impact before Booth was yanking her sideways; the girl, maybe ten years old, stumbled, twisting with her hands out, to the ice. Brennan winced in anticipation of the sound of cracking bone--but the girl barely hit before she was up on her knees, on her feet, and skating off again at top speed, chasing two other girls around the ice. She looked back to Booth, barely turning her head to do it, because he was holding her against him again with his back to the wall. Their faces were almost close enough to touch, and they were, she realized distantly, staring again.

"You know," Booth said, sounding a little breathless. "This is, uh. More hazardous than I remembered open skate being."

Brennan looked away, pushing off from Booth and watching the children darting around the center of the ice. "It's a failure to understand cause and effect," she explained. "Before puberty, children have difficulty recognizing that all that momentum has to _go_ somewhere. They don't think about how to stop."

"Ah," Booth said, catching her hand and tugging her into motion again. "But adults--adults know how to stop, huh?"

Brennan looked sharply at Booth, but he was scanning the ice, watching behind them for more out-of-control skaters. She looked back at her own feet, pushing carefully along the ice. She barely knew how to _go_, let alone stop. "The good ones do, apparently."

"Huh." Booth's hand tightened, and he moved ahead of her again, a boyish, reckless look in his eyes as he smiled. "Then I guess we can take another spin, right?"

All she had to do was keep her feet parallel and her knees bent, and hold on tight. Booth wasn't going to let her fall. Brennan smiled and caught hold of Booth's wrist with her free hand. "I guess we can."


End file.
